The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1887-08-24
BAYEUx TAPESTRY.
Quaint and Priceless Work of Not Moro
Than Eight Centuries Old.

A Quaint and Priceless Work of Not Moro
Than Eight Centuries Old.
In the whole composition are repre-
sented more than 62O persons, $50
horses, and $50 other animals, besides
ships, boats, buildings, trees, weapons,
tools and other objects. These figures
are drawn and colored fiat, without
any attempt at shading. and in their
spirited uncouthness remind us of tho
work OF a clever child. The faces,
hands and legs of the human figures,
when bare, are merely indicated by q
line of stitches. Yet it is an instance
of the durability of frail things that
these faces and hands have, in many
cases, retained for eight hundred years
decided expression. In the colored
portions of the embroidery, where the
linen ground is covered with long
worsted stitches, little attempt is made
to initiate the hues Of nature. There
is nothing improbable, it is true. in the
colors of the clothing, but those of the
animals are not such rs are found in
the common varieties. In the absenca
of shading and perspective, an at.
tempt is made to supply their place by
varying the color arbitrarily on tho
different parts of the same animal.
Thus light-blue horse may have his
two legs which are farthest from tho
spectator colorcd red, his ears green
and his name yellow. The hoofs on
his blue legs may be red, and those of
his red legs green. In spite of this
grotesqueness, the general effect is
good; and time, which will usually
bring colors which lie near each other
into harmony, however discordant they
may have been ut first, has mellowed
and softened the whole.
There has been some controversy as
To the maker OF the tapestry, and as to
its exact date. 1t is attributed by pop
Mar tradition to Matilda. wife of VIII
lam the Conqueror. who is supposed
10 have worked it with her ladies to
commemorate the glories of her hus-
band. Some writers suppose it to have
been made at a somewhat later date
than that of her lifetime. Mr.. freeman,
however, probably the best authority
on the subject, assigns the work to a
period little after that of the conquest,
but does not attribute its manufacture
to the Queen. The tapestry was worked,
as he thinks, Cor Odo, Bishop of Bayeux,
half brother to William, on the mothers
side. There are some reasons to. sup
pose that English workmen were en-
ployei. Odo appears at least four times
in the tapestry, and several of his vas
sails, otherwise almost unknown men,
are represented. The tapestry itself
was exhibited in the cathedral of
Bayeux down to the time of the
French revolution, being stretched
round the nave on certain feast-days.
During the eight centuries which have
elapsed since its completion it has es-
capped many dangers. The church was
burned in LOG. 1t was pillaged by the
Calvinists in 1862 In 1892 the tapestry
narrowly escaped being cut up into
coverings for carts for the French
Revolutionary army. In 1903 it was
carried to Paris and exhibited in the
Musee Napoleon to fire the French
heart for new conquest of England.
On being returned to Bayeux the tapest.
ry was wound on two cylinders or
windlasses in the town hail. and rolled
from one to the other for the inspection
of the curious. By this process it be-
came somewhat frayed, especially near
the ends 1t was not till 1912 that the
priceless relic was displayed to students
and the public, under glass. in special
museum of its own. Thence it was
again removed in 1871, on the approach
of the Prussian invaders. 1t was soon
brought back, however, and stretched
again in its museum, where it has been
carefully copied several times.-Scrtb'
ner's Magazine.